


The Saddest Lines

by athousandwinds



Category: Anne of Green Gables - Montgomery
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-13
Updated: 2010-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Rilla of Ingleside, Anne writes a letter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Saddest Lines

To my most esteemed friend,  
Shades of Aunt Chatty!  
I think it's delightful to read over old love letters – at least, if one still loves that person, and I do love you so very much, Gilbert. I have all our letters from the Summerside days, 'laid in rosemary and red ribbon'. There isn't a better or sweeter thing I've written.  
If you're reading this, you will know immediately that I have the right kind of pen tonight. My dearest, do you remember the night before we left for Kingsport the first time? You showed me an apple tree hidden away in the woods, which had blossomed and borne fruit, though no one ever knew. But we knew, you knew.  
I remember looking at you one day about then and thinking how much I liked the way your hair grew. I can't recall why – I think Phil must have been admiring you – but I noticed how it curled over the tops of your ears and yet always looked so neat. I was so pleased when Nan inherited it.  
I miss you, my love. I can't recall ever missing you so badly before, but then 'a good memory in such circumstances is unpardonable'. I woke last night and couldn't think for a moment whether you were at the Crawfords or the MacAllisters.  
O, to have a friend and comrade to last all one's life! It sounds like I should be quoting from somewhere, but I assure you it's one hundred percent Anne Blythe, née Shirley. (Did I ever tell you how glad I was your name was Blythe, Gilbert? It just wouldn't be the same to be Anne Scraggs or Anne Hinklebecker.) You have been that to me since that first day at Avonlea school. I was so cross with both of us for years afterwards, because I knew, deep down in a dusty corner of my heart, that we should be the best of friends.  
I could never have married Roy. He was wonderfully sweet and charming, but oh, he wasn't a _chum_ – as Phil would put it. I sometimes feel I could have married Moody Spurgeon more readily. And he wasn't you, Gilbert, and I can't help _not_ being sorry that he never repented that particular sin. (Looking at that sentence, can you believe I taught school, Gilbert? It's far too many years since I taught someone their letters.)  
Phil came to see me as soon as I wrote, you know. "Jo couldn't have stopped me," she said. "Wild horses couldn't, darling." It's so nice to have a friend like that – my dear Diana came, too. Even Josie Pye – well, not any more, I suppose, but there's still something so Pye-ish about her somehow – sent her condolences.  
I visited the graveyard today with Rilla. Do you remember _My Graves_? I think we laughed over it once (but when I think of you, I always think of your smile). When it came to it, though, I could hardly bear to bury _one_ child. And then Walter – Walter with his beautiful eyes and your gentle hands. He used to read us his poems in the evening and I told you he was going to be the greatest poet the world had ever seen. You believed me – I saw how proud you were of him, O most loving of fathers.  
I used to love graveyards – especially in the dusk with twilight stealing through the trees, when all was quiet (not silent, because true silence, I think, would be frightening). I used to breathe in all the old sighs of lovers lost and the cry of children, and think of the lives which lay sleeping beneath my feet. But now it's all too close to home – I can't bear to think of your last breath, your last heartbeat. And our Joy barely drew a single one, and Walter is buried in France. The memorial seems so cold there, without anything to make his death seem real.  
I'm sorry. I promised at the beginning this would be a love letter, and yet I've meandered on about so many little things. But then, this is also love – all the things I could never tell anyone else, all the little things that make up the lifetime we spent together. You are – you always have been – the only one, whether I was angry or sad or frightened, or happy. I miss you. I miss you.  
I've run out of things to say! Anne Shirley, lost for words. I can see your eyebrows quirking now, Gilbert, don't think I can't. I've shed a few too many tears over this than are probably seemly for a woman my age, but I won't mind if you don't, my dearest. I love you.  
I should sign this letter properly, _Anne Blythe, relict of the late Dr Gilbert Blythe_, but I won't. In the end, I have always been, and will continue to be,  
Your loving,  
Anne-girl


End file.
